Nostalgia & History > Rock Island 3 from Des Moines area late 70's

Here are 3 Rock Island photos, all from around Des Moines, no photograper attribute, all have pre 1980 frame dates.
  1st has 4318 EB that has a cut of pigs on the headend, going by the yard limit sign.
   2nd has 364 SB, info says at Hartford, looks more like Carlysle to me, but I will go with Hartford right now.
  3rd has 1331 leading the 4514 and the 1332 info says EB Des Moines
  I just got word that I forgot to post the pics, to much sleepy dust in my eyes, full of coffee now, so here goes
   KCRW287



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/20 09:52 by KCRW287.

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Since I've done this myself, no problem, but it would help if you attached the photos.  

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

ntharalson Wrote: > ...  I've done this myself ...

(laughing sheepishly) So have I! I just got off the horn with Jim. He is busy attaching said images as I type... :^)

Lance/199

Derailed hopper, pushed aside, in photo 2 is ominous. 

Ominous? Not if you're a Milwaukee fan, it means the trains start running again! Those are great Rock shots and very much off the normal
places we've seen over the years.

Out 

Not derailed. RI 's form of rip rap!

Posted from Android

2 is Hartford that is not Carlisle.

Not sure where 1 or 3 could be. 3 Could be East Des Moines.

Thanks for posting.

MILW86A

        Why did they try to 'buy' the yard limit sign ?

Great trio, last shot is Fantastic!

callum_out Wrote:
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> Ominous? Not if you're a Milwaukee fan, it means
> the trains start running again! Those are great
> Rock shots and very much off the normal
> places we've seen over the years.
>
> Out 

Yeah, the trains ran again, but still ominous! Sometime in 1978 I believe, I rode the North Coast Hiawatha over the ex-Milwaukee over Snoqualmie Pass when the ex-NP Stampede Pass line was washed out. ​The MLW had only a few years left, and the track was in deplorable shape. I sat up in my customary seat in the front of the dome, where the state of the roadbed was magnified, as seen by the way the roofs up ahead bobbed and weaved in crazy directions, at a speed of only 20 mph. Going over one of the curved trestles along the mountainside up by the pass, as the car leaned to the left to round the superelevation, you could look virtually straight down at a boxcar that had fallen off and fell 100 feet or so to the bottom of the ravine. A scary ride for sure, and one not to be taken again, as the roadbed is now a pedestrian trail (and the boxcar is still there).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/20 11:08 by alally8444.

That 3rd photo is killer !

Roger Durfee
Akron, OH

Really NICE series!

Larry

EL833 Wrote:
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> That 3rd photo is killer !

You bet it is!  Love it!  Love it!  Love it!

I love that shot of the 1331!

- Jeff 

dcfbalcoS1 Wrote:
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>         Why did they try to 'buy' the yard
> limit sign ?

I don't think the sale went through.  Because I don't think that's the yard limit sign.  Rock Island special instructions show that sign to be "yard limit approach" sign.  Placed 1 mile in advance of the yard limit beginning and the yard limit sign which was a yellow sign with a black Y on it.
 

In the early 1970's, I was dispatching first trick on the Rock Island's West Iowa territory (Manly to Short Line Jct. (Des Moines) to Allerton, Short Line Yard to Council Bluffs, Bow and Arrow branches out of Iowa Falls, etc.  We were running a Short Line Jct. to Iowa Falls turn every night on a pretty good schedule to get the robust volume of Winnebago chassis off of #43 and a block of empty grain hoppers to Iowa Falls, then moved the next morning to Forest City.  Coming south, the train usually had 54 new jumbo covered hoppers loaded with corn from the "Bow and Arrow" Estherville area.  The summer night had heavy fog but made fairly good time, except for one posted delay that the train went into emergency just north of Nevada.  Conductor Gene Thelen called the head end and told them they had an air hose separation and they were ready to do a set and release to get going again.

Later that morning, the yardmaster at Short Line yard called and said that there were only 53 loads of corn on arrival at Short Line Yard.  Did they set out a bad order?  Looking at the delay report, I called the agent at Nevada and asked him to have the section gang go north a couple miles to the point of the air hose separation..  Sure enough, they found a loaded covered hopper had rolled out of the train, the rear end rolled up and coupled into the head end, only leaving separated air hoses as the problem.
 
Harmonic Roll, Rock and Roll, or irregular cross level (all the same) was almost always the derailment cause in those days.

Dan Sabin